Singapore has been a powerhouse of economic growth and icon of modernity and innovation in the East. As recounted by everyone I met, it has been in recession for the last two years. One of the foremost and lead sectors of services is the oil drilling and exploration, oil rigs, and transportation of cargo. These have been sluggish of late and seem to have affected Singapore also significantly. The sector has seen staff shedding of significant numbers as a result. As a result other service providers to them like legal services, audit services, banking, etc have shrunk a bit – may be quite a bit and have had to down size some staff themselves.

A significant amount of investments by outsiders into Singapore was in real estate. This has caused the real estate prices to climb up steadily. In the recent years native Singaporeans have complained of unaffordable real estate prices and living costs. The minimum house price for a middle class is about SG$ 1 million. They have contended that it is not possible to support such a capital cost/debt on a salary of SG$ 6,000 – 8,000 average salaries and started migrating out of Singapore to Australia and elsewhere. To tame it down or reverse this, the Govt has put a 15% stamp duty – to discourage runaway property prices due to purchase by outsiders. This in order to help the ‘locals’. Due to this extreme measure (this must now be the highest stamp duty anywhere in the world), the outsiders have virtually stopped brining in investments. And construction industry ahs seen a steep slow down and large layoffs.

Added to this, Singapore has signed off on Fatca and other money laundering agreements spearheaded by US. As a result of tight monitoring and policing and KYC requirement, the funds that were managed for private wealth clients out of a liberal and efficient Singapore have seen a steep decline. And this has led to layoffs in this sector of high salaries curbing further their spends.

‘Singa’pore is a highly dynamic and innovative society. You can’t keep it caged for far too long. I understand that the DyPM who was handling economic affairs so far has handed over to someone else (i forget the name) to put back the economy on rails. And his mentor is Dr Y V Reddy who commands a high respect there – RBI for the way it has handled several world- wide crisis 1997 East Asia, 2002 internet bubble and 2008 by their conservative approach is respected the highest by Singapore Monetary authorities I was told by at least 3.

It will be interesting to see how they bounce back. I am sure there will be some lessons for all the rest.

It stands to reason the first thing to be hit in a recession will be the discretionary expenditure. Usually when i walk from my usual Hotel Park Royal to Komala Vilas, MTR, Ananda Bhavan etc – all within 100-300 meters for my dinner, i will hear the blaring music belching out of many Music clubs and Dance bars – Hollywood songs, bollywood songs, Tamil, Hindi, etc. But this time there was just a solitary one. I am sure one day the magazineEconomist will develop a Karaoke index to measure the level of economic activity a la the Big Mac index. Or use the level of vouyeuristic activities to measure the Economy.